"A Slobbering Lame Thing"? The SemicolonCase ReconsideredLANCE A. COOPER*C ONSTITUTIONAL INTERPRETATION DOES NOT ALWAYS INVOLVEsweeping enunciations of grand principles. On occasion, some-thing as seemingly innocuous as a punctuation mark demands a court'sexplanation. In 1873, the Texas Supreme Court's opinion about thegrammatical meaning of a semicolon almost sparked armed conflictbetween the state's Democrats and Republicans. The semicolon uponwhich the court decision hinged gave the decision, Ex Parte Rodriguez,its common name and gave the court that decided it the derisive name,"Semicolon Court."'The immediate cause of the dispute was the December 2, 1873, elec-tion of Democrat Richard Coke as governor. Coke won overwhelmingly,polling 100,415 votes to incumbent Republican Governor Edmund J.Davis's 52,141 votes.2 Democrats across the state cheered the end ofReconstruction and Republican rule. Celebration ceased, however, onJanuary 6, 1874, when the Texas Supreme Court handed down theRodriguez decision, which voided the December election on the groundsthat an election law passed on March 31, 1873, violated the TexasConstitution of 1869. Democrats condemned the court's ruling as anact of desperation by Republicans attempting to cling to power.According to Rodriguez's detractors, the decision was nothing more thanthe legally indefensible product of partisan judges who were strugglingto maintain the Republican party's power and to keep their own jobs.In addition to the election of government officials, voters in the 1873election had approved two amendments to the 1869 Constitution thatallowed the new governor to reorganize the supreme court. In other* Lance A. Cooper is a Dallas attorney and a Ph.D. student at the University of North Texas. Hewould like to thank Professor Randolph B. Campbell and Professor Richard G. Lowe for theirguidance and many helpful comments during the preparation of this article.'Ex Parte Rodriguez, 39 Tex. 706 (1874)., Carl Moneyhon, Republwanzsm in Reconstruction Texas (Austin: University of Texas Press, 198o), 191.

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